Bill
To Rollback Natural Gas Drilling Regulations Clears House Committee. According
to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, “Despite the looming promise of Gov. Tom Wolf’s veto, a Pennsylvania House panel has advanced a bill loosening regulations for conventional gas drillers. The bill sponsored by state Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati,
R-Jefferson, cleared the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee 16-9, with all Republicans, and one Democrat, voting in favor. The proposal rolls back an eight-year-old regulatory regime for the state’s natural gas drillers, known as Act 13, that
was signed into law by former GOP Gov. Tom Corbett. The law set standards for typical gas production drilling — imagine an oil derrick — as well as unconventional drilling, or fracking. Included in the law are rules for land restoration around wells, conventional
and unconventional, that the state’s chief oil and gas regulator has previously praised. But those same standards appear onerous to many conventional well operators, which are often smaller, independent companies, according Pennsylvania Independent Oil and
Gas Association president Dan Weaver. Conventional drilling is a $1.2 billion industry, according to Weaver. Fracking, meanwhile, has contributed to four times that total in fees, taxes and royalties to the commonwealth’s coffers alone, according to industry
group Marcellus Shale Coalition. ‘We’re trying to take regulations back to 2012, where things kinda went astray,’ Weaver told the Capital-Star. If the law passed, the industry would be governed by 1980’s vintage regulations, with some adjustments to raise
the threshold for reporting spills to the state.” [Pennsylvania Capital-Star,
1/13/20
(=)]
Pennsylvania
Orders Gas Well Plugged In Fight Over Methane. According
to WPXI, “Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration on Monday told Range Resources that it must fix a Marcellus Shale natural gas well ‘once and for all’ that it maintains has leaked methane since 2011 and contaminated groundwater and streams in north-central Pennsylvania.
Wolf’s Department of Environmental Protection in 2015 issued — and then later rescinded — $8.9 million in fines over the well to its Fort Worth, Texas-based owner, which contends that the Lycoming County well is not the source of the methane contamination.
The department insisted Monday that the Harman Lewis well’s cement casing is defective and that Range Resources’ cooperation is sporadic. The department’s 13-page order issued Monday gives Range Resources two months to submit a plan to reduce the gas migration
and, after the department approves the plan, four months to submit a plan to plug the well and a bore hole next to it. ‘We have attempted to resolve this in good faith but after numerous attempts, the operator still has not completely addressed these violations,’
Patrick McDonnell, Wolf’s environmental protection secretary, said in a statement. Range Resources’ refusal to accept responsibility and address the problem ‘is unacceptable,’ McDonnell said, and the order is designed to solve the problem ‘once and for all.’
The well has never been a producing well connected to pipelines, according to Range Resources and the department.” [WPXI,
1/13/20
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Pa.
Gas Drilling Fee Revenue Slides In 2019. According
to the Associated Press, “Lower prices for natural gas last year will mean a 21% drop in drilling fee revenue for Pennsylvania’s state programs and county and municipal governments even as production grew from exploration in the vast Marcellus Shale reservoir,
according to new state estimates. The Independent Fiscal Office projected last week that impact fee collections for 2019 will be $198 million, a nearly $54 million drop from 2018, but still above 2016’s low point of $173 million. Payments are due by July 1,
and the money largely stays in drilling communities. The drop breaks two straight years of rising revenue in Pennsylvania, the nation’s No. 2 natural gas state behind Texas. The Independent Fiscal Office said the decrease is largely due to the average annual
price of natural gas on the New York Mercantile Exchange dropping below $3, which triggered a $5,000-per-well decrease in fees. About 600 new wells were started in 2019, the second-lowest total in a decade other than 2016, when the average annual price also
dropped below $3. With 2019 production in Pennsylvania headed to a record 6.8 trillion cubic feet last year, the effective tax rate of the fee fell from 2.2% to 2.1% last year, the Independent Fiscal Office said. The per well ‘impact fee’ was enacted in 2012.”
[Associated Press, 1/13/20
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BLM Prevails In Alaska Drilling Challenge.
According to E&E News, “A federal judge last week upheld the Trump administration’s approval of exploratory drilling by a ConocoPhillips Co. subsidiary in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska Judge Sharon Gleason ruled last week that the Bureau of Land Management had adequately assessed possible risks of winter exploration in part of the 23.6 million acres of public land on Alaska’s North Slope. Gleason,
an Obama appointee, said the agency acted appropriately in ‘tiering’ its analysis of activity in the 2018 to 2019 season off prior National Environmental Policy Act reviews of energy development in the region. ‘[W]hen a programmatic [environmental impact statement]
does adequately consider the impacts of subsequent site-specific projects, a subsequent NEPA document need not repeat that analysis ‘unless new and significant environmental impacts arise that were not previously considered,’’ Gleason wrote. ‘Tiering promotes
efficiency; it allows an agency to take the requisite ‘‘hard look’ at the potential environmental consequences of [a] proposed action’ without treading the same ground twice,’ she continued. Environmental groups and the Native village of Nuiqsut, which is
closest to ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc.’s petroleum development, challenged BLM’s environmental assessment of proposals to conduct exploratory drilling and testing and to build ice roads, snow trails, ice pads, an air strip and temporary housing for the company’s
employees (E&E News PM, March 1, 2019).” [E&E News,
1/13/20 (=)]
Feds Warn Of 'Catastrophic' Blasts From Trump LNG Rule.
According to E&E News, “The National Transportation Safety Board has urged the Trump administration not to allow shipments of liquefied natural gas by rail, citing the risk of ‘catastrophic’
fires and explosions. In response to a draft rule released in October, NTSB said there’s not enough evidence that the current generation of tank cars, which are designed to carry other flammable gases like ethylene in supercooled liquid form, can be used safely
on a wider scale. And, the safety board said, the U.S. Transportation Department should require additional safety measures before it allows so-called unit trains, which have as many as 100 identical tank cars. ‘We believe the risks of catastrophic LNG releases
in accidents is too great not to have operational controls in place before large blocks of tank cars and unit trains proliferate,’ Robert Sumwalt, the safety board’s chairman, wrote in the group’s formal comment to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials
Safety Administration. Comments on the draft rule were due yesterday. More than a dozen other advocacy groups and state and local officials also joined NTSB to oppose the draft rule to permit LNG transport in rail tank cars (Energywire, Oct. 21, 2019). Other
commenters included a trade group of state fire marshals, communities that live with rail traffic, the union that represents railroad engineers and 16 state attorneys general, who all rallied against the rule. President Trump signed an executive order in 2019
telling PHMSA to write regulations allowing liquefied gas to be shipped in rail cars. The order requires the rules to be finalized by May. A PHMSA spokesman said the agency doesn’t comment on pending rulemakings.” [E&E News,
1/14/20 (=)]
Chad Ellwood
Climate Action Campaign
202.448.2877 ext. 119